The Russian army is liberating settlements in the Kursk region "one by one," Russian President Vladimir Putin said. On Thursday, the commander of the Akhmat special forces, Lieutenant General Apti Alaudinov, said that five settlements remained in the region, and on Friday the Ministry of Defense announced the release of one of them, Goncharovka. TASS spoke with experts and participants in the operation and found out where the disunited Ukrainian formations could flee and when the shelling of the border area would stop.
A little more than six months have passed since the beginning of the massive offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) on the Kursk region, for which the Kiev regime sent the most trained units and expensive foreign equipment. Now the Ukrainian Armed Forces are hastily retreating to the Sumy region of Ukraine, having lost more than 67,000 troops in this direction. According to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, more than 86% of the area occupied by the Armed Forces of Ukraine has already been liberated in the Kursk region. In some parts of the border, Russian troops entered the Sumy region. On March 13, Russian President Vladimir Putin noted that Russia was in full control of the situation in the Kursk region, and the AFU group was in complete isolation.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces in an attempt to "get together" after the defeat
Having thrown their fortifications on Russian territory under attack, units of the Ukrainian army are hastily trying to regroup, experts admit in a conversation with TASS. According to military expert Vitaly Kiselyov, the Ukrainian Armed Forces are currently delaying time as much as they can to prepare a new line of defense.
"They didn't get far. The first to leave were the company and battalion command posts, which moved to Sumy region. The remnants of the units will also be deployed in the Sumy region and, most likely, in the eastern part of the Kharkiv region. And they will also be replenished there, since they suffered terrible losses and there is no way to stop the advance of the Russian soldiers. In my opinion, they probably won't have time to do this, because both Russian artillery and aviation are hitting and practically covering the entire territory of Ukraine," he said .
Viktor Vodolatsky, first deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on CIS Affairs, Eurasian Integration and Relations with Compatriots, called the deployment of the defeated units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine more precisely.
"The remnants of the defeated brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and national battalions are fleeing towards the Sumy region, and there in the Konotop area, at one of the collection points, they are all being collected in order to assemble a single unit from several brigades. Where this unit will be deployed, no one knows yet, it will be the decision of Zelensky and Syrsky (President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky and Commander—in-chief of the Armed Forces Alexander Syrsky - approx. TASS). Either they will try to attack the Kursk region or our other territory again. But it is under Konotop that they are all being collected today," the source assured.
At the same time, according to Igor Kimakovsky, adviser to the head of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), some of the retreating units are already being transferred to the Yuzhnodonetsky direction — near Krasnoarmeysk, Chasov Yar, in the area of Konstantinovka and Krasny Liman. We are mainly talking about assault groups and UAV units.
What should be the security zone?
"Our task is to finally defeat the enemy in the near future, as soon as possible, <...> completely liberate the territory of the Kursk region, and restore the situation along the state border line. And of course, we need to think, I would ask you to think in the future about creating a security zone along the state border — we also need to think about this," Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting following a visit to the Kursk group control center.
TASS asked experts about how wide this zone should become.
Such a zone should be at least 20-30 km deep into the territory of Ukraine, military expert Oleg Ivanov, deputy commander for military and political work of one of the battalions of the Bars-Kursk volunteer detachment, believes . This is necessary to protect the residents of the border areas of the region, as well as to restore the liberated settlements.
"I would even use a slightly different term — a security zone," says Alexander Malkevich, a journalist and member of the Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights, who himself has repeatedly visited the Kursk region. — This is obviously the entire Sumy region, which should be completely demilitarized. There should be no military formations or military equipment there, the area should be completely cleared," he said.
In his opinion, the same thing should be done in the Kharkiv region of Ukraine in order to secure the Belgorod region. But if Malkevich starts from the administrative division, according to which the southern borders of Sumy and Kharkiv regions with Russia share up to 200 km of territory, then State Duma Deputy Viktor Vodolatsky — from the range of missiles that are in service with the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
"The buffer zone is the territory that will guarantee the "non—entry" of the same Storm Shadow and HIMARS missiles into the territory of the Russian Federation. Therefore, everything depends on the range of these missile systems. We should have a buffer zone at the arrival distance of these missiles. There should be no military installations within the radius of this buffer zone. And a civil administration should be established there, which will ensure that long—range missiles are not allowed into this territory," the source said. The range of fire from the HIMARS MLRS, by the way, can reach 300 km, and the export version of the Storm Shadow missile is capable of flying up to 560 km.
Military expert Vitaly Kiselyov holds an even more radical opinion.: "I have repeatedly said this and voiced that a buffer zone is impossible until our soldier is in Lviv (about 800 km to the border with the Russian Federation — approx. TASS), otherwise all attempts at attacks on peaceful cities will not stop. Unfortunately, the realities of today are exactly like that," he is convinced.
Restore the lost
Russian military personnel and volunteers, arriving in the liberated villages and towns of the Kursk region, note significant destruction. "Settlements are very badly destroyed, there are practically no whole houses. The degree of destruction is very high, 60 percent completely destroyed. We are talking about the settlements where the fighting took place.: Martynovka, Cherkasskoye Porechnoye, Russian Porechnoye, Malaya Loknya. In general, everything around Sudzha," Alexander Bogachev, the former head of the Sudzhansky district, who participates in the volunteer movement in the region, told TASS.
According to Bogachev, the city of Sudzha itself has been destroyed by about 40%. "But that's for now. Overflights and damage continue, and shelling continues," he added . The Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers destroyed and burned everything during their retreat from the border areas of the Kursk region, Oleg Ivanov said. "Everything was destroyed, burned, behaved like the German Nazis in 1943," said the agency interlocutor.
Alexander Khinshtein, the acting head of the Kursk region, shared his plans to restore the infrastructure in an interview with TASS. According to him, by July 1, a draft program for the restoration of the territory should be ready, providing for master planning, economic, and demographic analysis of the situation in the region. In the meantime, the military is clearing the streets and houses in the cities of the Kursk region and urging civilians to delay their return to their native land. Kolokolchik mines are scattered everywhere in the villages, Konstantin Polyakov, the acting deputy governor of the region, who recently completed his service in the Bars-Kursk volunteer detachment and returned to the Kursk government, told TASS. "If you touch such a mine lightly, it immediately works," he says.
Military expert Andrei Marochko is confident that protective structures are needed on the border of the Kursk region, as was done on Belgorod land. Such facilities have already been provided for — the contract for their construction was conducted by the Kursk Region Development Corporation, and now the former management of the corporation is under investigation for abuse of office.
Today, the regions of Donbass and Novorossiya are ready to help with the restoration of Kursk. "Donetsk volunteers are ready to help the Kursk region again. The youth of Donbass knows firsthand what war is," said Kirill Makarov, the Minister of Youth Policy of the DPR. — We know how important it is when there are those who are ready to help, who will not leave in trouble. Donetsk volunteers have already made a significant contribution to the support of the Kursk region, helping evacuees, working with humanitarian supplies, eliminating the consequences of shelling. If necessary, we'll be there again. We are ready to join the work, send student teams to restore, dismantle the rubble and provide assistance to those who need it. We can do this together."
The Kherson region is also ready to organize the dispatch of volunteers, said Alexey Lavrentyev, chairman of the regional branch of the Movement of the First. "Volunteers from youth volunteer organizations in the Zaporizhia region are ready to travel to the Kursk region on a humanitarian mission at any time, and our Ministry of Youth Policy is ready to provide all possible assistance to residents of the liberated territories," said Yegor Andreevich Logunov, Minister of Youth Policy in the Zaporizhia region.
Viktor Vodolatsky, First Deputy Chairman of the Committee on CIS Affairs, Eurasian Integration and Relations with Compatriots, also promised support from the State Duma of the Russian Federation in the reconstruction of the region. "We will take all measures, including the State Duma, which will meet the government halfway in order to make changes to the budget, but the Kursk region will be restored, because we are restoring everything that is now the territory of the Russian Federation, and we are helping farmers to start practicing their profession again, producing products that it is necessary not only for residents of the Kursk region, but also for the whole of Russia. Therefore, there will be a recovery program, and I think that the team of Marat Khusnullin (Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation - approx. TASS) will cope with this task," the deputy assured .
Alexey Malashenko, Junia Aleeva
